Troy University reviewing bids for $10 million campus building in downtown Phenix City

The bids are in for Troy University’s new riverfront campus in Phenix City, although it will be a few days before the general contractor for the $10 million project is chosen.

“There were seven bids,” said David White, vice chancellor of Troy’s existing Phenix City campus off U.S. Highway 431 near Chattahoochee Valley Community College.

“We had good participation. Everything came in about where we thought,” he said Wednesday of the process, though declining to name the low bidder yet.

The university can either accept the low bid for the new 44,000-square-foot structure overlooking the Chattahoochee River in downtown Phenix City, or put the project back out for further bidding if it wishes.

Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for unlimited digital access to our website, apps, the digital newspaper and more.

The bids received Tuesday are being forwarded to the Troy, Ala., office of Troy University Chancellor Jack Hawkins for review, White said.“We should get word in the next day or three,” he said. “It probably will be Monday, but I may know something by Friday.”

Troy expects to open the downtown campus building by the fall of 2014. It will be home to about 600 students and 30 staff and faculty initially, with the university’s business school and its college of health and sciences being the first departments to relocate from the old campus to the new one.

Several years out, the downtown structure will about double in space, with the rest of the university moving in and the old campus property being put up for sale.

The redevelopment of the downtown Phenix City includes a 99-room Courtyard Marriott being built by RAM Hotels, which has lodging properties on both sides of the river. The new hotel, now under construction adjacent to the Troy property, should be open by next spring, according to Mitesh “Matt” Patel, RAM’s vice president and operations executive.

Another piece of the transformation is Phenix Plaza shopping center, which was purchased by Columbus-based W.C. Bradley Co. for $4.5 million several months ago. The company plans to rehabilitate the retail center, which is now anchored by a Piggly-Wiggly supermarket and a Family Dollar store. River rafting outfitter Whitewater Express also is using some of the center’s former vacant space to sell trips on the nearby river.